INWIT, first Italian tower operator, e Legambiente, most widespread environmental association in Italy, join forces to monitor air pollution. The collaboration includes theuse of INWIT towers to measure and monitor, through IoT sensors, some environmental parameters relating to air quality, to protect biodiversity, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and fine particles.
The natural areas subject to air pollution monitoring will be: Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, Maiella National Park, Zompo lo Schioppo Nature Reserve, and Monte Genzana Alto Gizio Nature Reserve.
A partnership that underlines the potential of the collaboration between INWIT, which offers diversified services by exploiting the potential of its assets in a “tower as a service” logic, and Legambiente, which makes its knowledge available on the peculiarities of protected areas, to protect of biodiversity and the most fragile ecosystems.
“The partnership with Legambiente bears witness to the added value of the widespread distribution of our towers throughout the area, in this case for the protection of biodiversity – declares Michelangelo Suigo, Director of External Relations, Communication and Sustainability of INWIT -. INWIT’s towers are digital, shared and sustainable infrastructures, available to mobile telecommunications operators and capable of hosting advanced IoT technology for monitoring air quality and measuring the impacts of climate change, for the benefit of local areas and communities in which we operate”.
“Pollution, together with the climate crisis, the loss of habitat fragmentation, the over-exploitation of resources, the introduction of invasive alien species – declares George Zampetti, Director General of Legambiente – represents one of the main threats to biodiversity and natural ecosystems. For this reason we have decided to support INWIT in this new experimental monitoring which will allow us, on the one hand, to take stock of the air quality in some Italian protected areas, and on the other, to better understand the strategies and measures to adopt to deal with , first of all, to the problem of air pollution, to protect biodiversity and achieve the objectives established by the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030”.
The project starts from the awareness that Italy is considered a hotspot of biodiversity precious and to be protected from the increasing risks posed by climate change. The protection of biodiversity has been identified as one of the relevant topics for INWIT in the Sustainability Plan, with the assessment of the impacts and opportunities of the infrastructures, reported within a position paper dedicated.